The curtain'd sleep; now witchcraft celebrates 8 Nature seems dead,] That is, over our hemisphere all action and motion seem to have ceased.' This image, which is, perhaps, the most striking that poetry can produce, has been adopted by Dryden, in his Conquest of Mexico: All things are hush'd as Nature's self lay dead, These lines, though so well known, I have transcribed, that the contrast between them and this passage of Shakspeare may be more accurately observed. Night is described by two great poets, but one describes a night of quiet, the other of perturbation. In the night of Dryden, all the disturbers of the world are laid asleep; in that of Shakspeare, nothing but sorcery, lust, and murder, is awake. He that reads Dryden, finds himself lulled with serenity, and disposed to solitude and contemplation. He that peruses Shakspeare, looks round alarmed, and starts to find himself alone. One is the night of a lover; the other, of a murderer. JOHNSON. Perhaps Sir Philip Sidney had the honour of suggesting the last image in Dryden's description: 66 Night hath clos'd all in her cloke, 66 Daunger hence good care doth keepe; "Jealousie itselfe dooth sleepe." England's Helicon, edit. 1600, p. 1. STEEVENS. Now o'er the one half world," &c. So, in the second part of Marston's Antonio and Mellida, 1602: "'Tis yet dead night; yet all the earth is clutch'd "In the dull leaden hand of snoring sleep: "No breath disturbs the quiet of the air, "No spirit moves upon the breast of earth, "Save howling dogs, night-crows, and screeching-owls, "Save meagre ghosts, Piero, and black thoughts. 66 66 I am great in blood, Unequal'd in revenge :-you horrid scouts "That sentinel swart night, give loud applause "From your large palms." MALONE. The curtain'd sleep; Now witchcraft celebrates-] The word now has been added [by Rowe] for the sake of metre. Probably Shakspeare wrote: "The curtain'd sleeper." The folio Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf, Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace, With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design Moves like a ghost'. -Thou sure and firm-set earth', spells the word sleepe, and an addition of the letter r only, affords the proposed emendation. Milton has transplanted this image into his Masque at Ludlow Castle, v. 554 : 66 steeds "That draw the litter of close-curtain'd sleep." STEEVENS. Mr. Steevens's emendation of "the curtain'd sleeper," is well intitled to a place in the text. It is clearly Shakspeare's own word. RITSON. So afterwards: "—— a hideous trumpet calls to parley "The sleepers of the house." Now was added by Sir William D'Avenant, in his alteration of this play, published in 1674. MALONE. 9 thus with his stealthy pace, With Tarquin's ravishing STRIDES, towards his design Moves like a ghost.] The old copy-sides. STEEVENS. Mr. Pope changed sides to strides. MALONE. A ravishing stride is an action of violence, impetuosity, and tumult, like that of a savage rushing on his prey; whereas the poet is here attempting to exhibit an image of secrecy and caution, of anxious circumspection and guilty timidity, the stealthy pace of a ravisher creeping into the chamber of a virgin, and of an assassin approaching the bed of him whom he proposes to murder, without awaking him; these he describes as "moving like ghosts," whose progression is so different from strides, that it has been in all ages represented to be as Milton expresses it : "Smooth sliding without step." This hemistich will afford the true reading of this place, which is, I think, to be corrected thus: 66 66 and wither'd murder thus with his stealthy pace, "With Tarquin ravishing, slides tow'rds his design, Tarquin is, in this place, the general name of a ravisher, and the sense is Now is the time in which every one is asleep, but those who are employed in wickedness; the witch who is sacrificing to Hecate, and the ravisher, and the murderer, who, like me, are stealing upon their prey.' Hear not my steps, which way they walk 2, for fear Thy very stones prate of my where-about", When the reading is thus adjusted, he wishes, with great propriety, in the following lines, that the earth may not hear his steps. JOHNSON. I cannot agree with Dr. Johnson that a stride is always an action of violence, impetuosity, or tumult. Spenser uses the word in his Fairy Queen, b. iv. c. viii. and with no idea of violence annexed to it: "With easy steps so soft as foot could stride." And as an additional proof that a stride is not always a tumultuous effort, the following instance, from Harrington's translation of Ariosto, [1591,] may be brought : "He takes a long and leisurable stride, "And longest on the hinder foot he staid; Orlando Furioso, 28th book, stanza 63. Whoever has been reduced to the necessity of finding his way about a house in the dark, must know that it is natural to take large strides, in order to feel before us whether we have a safe footing or not. The ravisher and murderer would naturally take such strides, not only on the same account, but that their steps might be fewer in number, and the sound of their feet be repeated as seldom as possible. STEEVens. Mr. Steevens's observation is confirmed by many instances that occur in our ancient poets. So, in a passage by J. Sylvester, cited in England's Parnassus, 1600: "Anon he stalketh with an easy stride, "By some clear river's lillie-paved side." Again, in our author's King Richard II.: 66 Nay rather every tedious stride I make -." Thus also the Roman poets: vestigia furtim Suspenso digitis fert taciturna gradu. Ovid. Fasti. Passibus. Statius, lib. x. "With Tarquin's ravishing," &c. The justness of this similitude is not very obvious. But a stanza, in his poem of Tarquin and Lucrece, will explain it : "Now stole upon the time the dead of night, "When heavy sleep had clos'd up mortal eyes; And take the present horror from the time, lives; Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives 3. [A bell rings. I - "No noise but owls' and wolves' dead-boding cries ; WARBURTON. Thou SURE and firm-set earth,] The old copy-" Thou sowre," &c. which, though an evident corruption, directs us to the reading I have ventured to substitute in its room. So, in Act IV. Sc. III. : 2 "Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure." STEEVENS. which they may walk Corrected by Mr. Rowe. MALONE. -." STEEVENS. 3 Thy very stones prate of my where-about,] The following passage in a play which has been frequently mentioned, and which Langbaine says was very popular in the time of Queen Elizabeth, A Warning for Faire Women, 1599, perhaps suggested this thought: "Mountains will not suffice to cover it, "Cloake it so cunningly, but at the last, "That lie within the street, cry out for vengeance, Yet the thought may have been derived immediately from Scripture. See St. Luke, ix. 40; and Habakkuk, xi. 10, 11. MALONE. So, as Dr. Farmer observes, in Churchyard's Choice: "The stepps I tread, shall tell me my offence." STEEVENS. 4 And take the present horror from the time, Which now suits with it.] i. e. lest the noise from the stones take away from this midnight season that present horror which suits so well with what is going to be acted in it. What was the horror he means? Silence, than which nothing can be more horrid to the perpetrator of an atrocious design. This shows a great knowledge of human nature. WARBURTON. Whether to "take horror from the time" means not rather to catch it as communicated, than to deprive the time of horror, deserves to be considered. JOHNSON. I go, and it is done; the bell invites me". 101 That summons thee to heaven, or to hell'. [Exit. The latter is surely the true meaning. Macbeth would have nothing break through the universal silence that added such a horror to the night, as suited well with the bloody deed he was about to perform. Mr. Burke, in his Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful, observes, that "all general privations are great, because they are all terrible;" and, with other things, he gives silence as an instance, illustrating the whole by that remarkable passage in Virgil, where, amidst all the images of terror that could be united, the circumstance of silence is particularly dwelt upon : Dii quibus imperium est animarum, umbræque silentes, Et Chaos et Phlegethon, loca nocte tacentia late. When Statius, in the fifth book of the Thebaid, describes the Lemnian massacre, his frequent notice of the silence and solitude, both before and after the deed, is striking in a wonderful degree: Conticuere domus, &c. and when the same poet enumerates the terrors to which Chiron had familiarized his pupil, he subjoins nec ad vastæ trepidare silentia sylvæ. Achilleid, ii. 391. Again, when Tacitus describes the distress of the Roman army, under Cæcina, he concludes by observing, "-ducemque terruit, dira quies." See Annal. i. LXV. In all the preceding passages, as Pliny remarks, concerning places of worship, silentia ipsa adoramus. STEEVENS. In confirmation of Steevens's ingenious note on this passage, it may be observed, that one of the circumstances of horror enumerated by Macbeth is,- Nature seems dead." M. MASON. So also, in the second Eneid: vestigia retro Observata sequor per noctem, et lumine lustro. Horror ubique animos, simul ipsa silentia terrent. Dryden's well-known lines, which exposed him to so much ridicule, "An horrid stillness first invades the ear, "And in that silence we the tempest hear," show, that he had the same idea of the awfulness of silence as our poet. MALONE. 5 Whiles I threat, he lives; Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath GIVES.] Here is evidently a false concord; but it must not be corrected, for it is necessary to the rhyme. Nor is this the only place in which Shakspeare has sacrificed grammar to rhyme. In Cymbeline, the song in Cloten's serenade runs thus : |